u/smallpenguinable

Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122174920592697384&id=61570921523502

"[The Cap That Stood Still]

There's a number in your CPF account that hasn't moved in 18 years.

In 2008, CPF gave you a bonus 1% interest on your first $60,000. That number hasn't changed. What has changed: the Full Retirement Sum (FRS) you need has more than doubled.

So the bonus that once covered more than half of your target now covers barely a quarter of it. Same cap, different world.

I asked the Minister for Manpower why this cap hasn't been reviewed when other major CPF parameters are revised regularly. Swipe through to see my questions, the answer, and what it means for your money."

"Despite the occasional rainy day, the past month or so has been punishingly hot (whenever friends visiting from abroad boldly suggest that “you must be used to it by now,” and I just say that Singaporeans aren’t uniquely tropically-evolved humans, we just know where the aircon is). So while there’s no silver bullet when it comes to fixing the weather, there are some things we can do to mitigate its effects.

One such way is with “cool paint,” a paint technology that can lower indoor temperatures by a combination of reflecting sunlight better, while also reducing the amount of heat it absorbs. The application of cool paint has yielded rather promising results, with some evidence pointing to a reduction in ambient temperatures by up to 2 degrees. Of course, this then means savings in electricity costs, when we turn on the fan or air.

We have officially commenced the rollout in #Anchorvale Gardens, with plans to extend this initiative to 15 other precincts over the course of the year, as part of the town council’s scheduled Repairs and Redecorations works. When your block is slated for a refresh, I hope you will participate in the community polls. Let’s bring about a more vibrant and (literally) cooler #SengkangGRC."

***"Wow, the most powerful food influencer has surfaced. The one that can actually enact change to "preserve" the food culture as mentioned in the video. But I wonder if PM Wong truly knows the impossible situation our hawkers face in their quest to survive, let alone that altruistic "preserve food culture" role, yet face ridiculous social enterprise or socially conscious (don't roll eye please) hawker Centre management contractual rules that's approved by his underlings at NEA. The public is also made to think hawkers owe them cheap food and feel entitled to it. Very demoralizing

A full parliament motion on preserving Hawker Culture was discussed in Nov 2024 and unanimously approved. It agreed on items like manpower for hawkers , removing rent bidding system , implementing low rents or low GTO, abolishing Social Enterprise Hawker Cte management (or whatever it's called today) and much more. No dissentions.

But till today, no action too. I wonder how parliament works.

I had a glance at the new contracts of some Sehc hawkers and ridiculously, as if in defiance of Parliament, they doubled down on public and govt sentiments. It's as, or more agregious than before. Those rules on 7 day work week ,punishable by $100 fines each day they close without official permission, are still intact, the higher than usual gas prices provided by the management which are way higher than other hawker centres (no discussion on why) are implemented. Also, they charge hawkers the compulsory use of their POS system when there's no requirement to charge a GTO, or a commission on total sales.

All this in the midst of energy and cost crisis. Again I say, the hawkers are not subsidised. And the govt pays SEHC millions to operate on their behalf ($4.86mln to Jurong West SEHC to manage it)..and that's a small-ish hawker Cte.

Ya. There's more but I won't bore you now but will bear down on it later .

And btw, I don't think the PM on the video is an AI fake😊, so if his minders read this and show him the unredacted truth, I hope this top flight influencer can truly act to protect preserve and imagine new possibilities to our fast fading heritage hawker culture, not just build fancier hawker centres. Or these hawker videos are mere political optics."***

[Saturday Market Walks]

Good to be back doing our regular coffeeshop walks in Serangoon these past two weekends after a week away with Serangoon residents in Chongqing and Chengdu (more on that soon!).

Some of what I heard on the ground:

A shopowner has absorbed both GST hikes - from 7% to 8%, and 8% to 9% - without raising the prices. In mature estates with more retirees, there's a worry that raising prices will drive away cost-sensitive customers. This is a tough balance to strike.

I believe that the voucher system will be a big part of keeping a significant portion of local spending here, even after the Johor links are liberalised. Serangoon North shops should also get more footfall when the Serangoon North CRL station is completed in 2030, though this may go beyond some shopowners' timelines.

Beyond that, once our Serangoon North Vista BTO is completed in 2027, many longtime shopowners have asked for there to be serious consideration of en bloc plans for Serangoon North commercial area - for at least a partial refresh of our commercial area.

Another issue is COE. An elderly couple who run a flower delivery business need to renew the COE on their van. They can't afford it. For small business owners who depend on a commercial vehicle, the COE isn't a luxury purchase, but simply the cost of staying in business.

The government has announced a review of COE categorisation — but as I understand it that review only looks at how to redraw the line between Category A and B cars. It doesn't touch Category C, where commercial vehicles sit.

I believe that there could be a finer categorisation for commercial vehicles. Today, Category C lumps a florist's delivery van together with large trucks and bus operators. A small business owner renewing a light goods vehicle is competing in the same bidding pool as large fleet operators with very different ability to pay.

For that elderly couple, it could mean the difference between keeping their business and closing it.

"There is an unmistakable – and growing – sense among Singaporeans that no matter how hard they work, the gap keeps widening and hope keeps slipping further and further away. It’s like running on a treadmill.

This is the real crisis that the government refuses to acknowledge and not because Singaporeans have it good and are lazy.

A people who feel the walls closing in from every side and are emotionally drained don’t become more dynamic or innovative, they don’t perform at their highest potential.

I say this to the PAP leadership: Treat Singapore like a home — not a soulless corporation obsessed only with profit margins, GDP figures, and property prices, where ministers measure their worth by the size of their salaries rather than the wellbeing of their people.

Beyond material accumulation, a society must also ask: What kind of human beings are we becoming?"

I assure Mr Wong that if we get this right, wealth, not just in dollars and cents, but wealth in its most profound sense, will flow.

Singapore must become that home again. We must find our way back.

#TeamSDP #SDP #youngdemocrats #renewrebuildreignite #Roadmap2030 #ElectoralReform #singaporepolitics

"As an economist, the most interesting thing about the legal recruiter’s comment that Singaporean workers aren’t as hungry as workers from other countries — and the overwrought reactions to it — is that nobody (neither she nor her detractors) seemed to highlight what I assumed would be the main point of contention: how does she know? Or more precisely, how does a recruiter, an HR officer, a university admissions officer, etc. tell if the person he/she is recruiting is indeed highly motivated or is simply good at appearing to be very hungry/motivated?

At one level, this is a garden variety information asymmetry problem: workers/students know more about their abilities and motivation than their prospective employers/schools. The information asymmetry is more severe with motivation than with cognitive abilities (which are more reliably revealed by the potential hire’s academic qualifications and grades). You may say that higher education achievement is a signal/proxy for motivation as obtaining a degree (with good grades) from a top university is a sign of high motivation. But we all know of people who were “good on paper” but ended up being disappointing or unmotivated on the job.

Once the person is hired into the job, this asymmetry shrinks over time as employers get to observe the worker’s motivation. But at the point of recruitment, it’s a prediction problem (not just information asymmetry) and as far as I can tell, it’s mostly guesswork when it comes to less measurable criteria such as worker motivation.

Employers and recruiters also haven’t gotten much better in distinguishing more motivated applicants from those who are less so. You may think that AI would do a better job than human recruiters — and you would be wrong. A recent paper provided quite compelling evidence that AI-assisted recruitment not only preferred CVs written with LLMs (than by humans), but the LLMs used by the employers had a strong bias for CVs written by themselves!

Just to illustrate how intractable the problem is: the late Daniel Kahneman, the first psychologist to win the Nobel Prize for Economics, admitted that he was extremely doubtful of the selection methods he had developed for identifying officers for the Israeli army and whether it produced any discernible improvement in the quality of the candidates selected.

And in spite of all the above, the people doing recruitment (whether of workers or of students) tend to be highly confident of their ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked people doing hiring or student admissions how they know that the people they’re recommending strongly (say for scholarships) are better than the average candidate and their response being essentially “we know”. Hardly have I ever been shown data on how their preferred candidates performed better than the average recruit a year or two later.

Part of the problem is that these “experts” get very little immediate feedback. By the time the worker/student the recruiter strongly recommended is found to be a dud, the recruiter may have left. Recruiters can always cite extenuating factors to “explain” why a promising hire underperformed; this absolves the recruiter of blame. Also, recruiters bear little cost (they have little skin in the game) when they recommend lousy hires or students who are later revealed as such. This is also because everyone else in their industry isn’t much better in their ability to separate the good from the just average. But the lack of (immediate) feedback hasn’t stopped recruiters from being supremely confident — as was apparent in the podcast with the legal recruiter."

***"Yesterday, Emily Woo, myself and our RDU West team visited a block of rental flats in Senja Road, in Holland–Bukit Timah GRC. Many of the residents are older Singaporeans, living in small units, with health problems and very little income.

Many shared with us their hopes, struggles and aspirations, but one story stayed with me. The story of a 68-year-old Chinese man – a taxi driver who is bankrupt. He went for spine surgery about a year ago, but could not stay home long enough to recover properly. He is still in a lot of pain because he has to sit for long hours to do his job, even if it is only part-time. He has to wear a bandage on his lower back, but it does not help much to ease the pain. He has to work to pay rent for the taxi, and also because he has to pay rent to HDB, which had increased from $59 to $99 recently. He was worried that if he earned even a little more, HDB would ask him to pay $165.

I did not understand this. Really I don't.

What kind of a system expects a 68-year-old man to work till he drops?

His story reminded me of another story I read in the papers, which happened a few blocks away near Blk 647B Senja Close, just about a week ago. A 69‑year‑old amputee died after a garbage truck hit him while he was collecting recyclables near the rubbish point at the block. He had lost his right leg and moved around in a wheelchair. People in the area said he was often seen there collecting cans and bottles from the bins.

When I read that news, I remember thinking: was it the garbage truck that killed him, or was it poverty? Poverty that meant he had to work, and work collecting rubbish, at the age of almost 70. Don’t tell me he was collecting recyclables “just to exercise”.

What kind of a system drives the old, the sick and the most vulnerable to this extent?

These are not people who coasted. They are the generation that worked when wages were low, CPF was thin, and there was no Workfare or Progressive Wage to top up their incomes. They built today’s Singapore, but they are now growing old in a high‑cost city on a low‑support floor. Food, utilities, medical bills and basic necessities are priced like a rich country. Their protection is still designed like we are a poorer one.

If my party and I had our way, support for the 68-year-old part-time taxi driver we met – the senior citizen who is suffering from a spine injury – would stop being a razor-thin token.

This is why, in Red Dot United’s Shadow Budget 2026, we proposed at least $500 every month for the poorest 30% of seniors, and $700 for those who make it past 80 in small flats with almost no CPF left. We have to admit that the system has underpaid them all their lives. That way, they could work if they wanted to – really to exercise, or to pass time – but not because the system requires them to break their bodies as a sacrifice to keep the wheels churning.

I will talk about the other people we spoke to yesterday at another time. But this story consumes me at the moment. I don’t believe it is right that we treat our seniors this way.

What do you think?"***

Credits to Original Source: https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/first-term-mp-under-fire-after-saying-singaporeans-arent-having-babies-because-they-have-tasted-a-good-and-rich-life-at-a-young-age.7203686/

Credits to the Original Source: Be 'hungry' or have kids: Singaporeans say they feel pulled in two directions - Singapore News : r/YahLahBut

***Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh raised a point of order in Parliament on 7 May after Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How referenced remarks from Sembawang GRC MP Mariam Jaafar during debate on the Info-communications Media Development Authority (Amendment) Bill.

Tan told the House that Mariam, who was overseas for work, had sent him her speech and that he would address her points where relevant.

Singh questioned whether the references complied with parliamentary standing orders, noting Hansard would not contain her remarks. “I’d just like to confirm whether that is as per the standing orders,” Singh said.

Speaker of Parliament Seah Kian Peng agreed, saying members “have to be present in the chamber to make your speech and make your points”.***

Credits to the Original Source: Mayor tio gan email. Cc Shyun Tsai and Hsien Loong | HardwareZone Forums

For the minority of SAF full-time national servicemen (NSF) that stay out of camp, the monthly NS allowance already provides for their basic personal upkeep, including the cost of meals, said Chan Chun Sing, Coordinating Minister for Public Services and Minister for Defence.

He was replying to a parliamentary question by Workers' Party MP Kenneth Tiong on Wednesday (May 6), who had asked if NSFs at non-camp locations without cookhouse facilities receive meal allowances during duty hours. 

These non-camp locations include the Central Manpower Base (CMPB), MINDEF and Defence Science and Technology Agency.

Tiong also asked whether the ministry will publish these rates on the CMPB website, as is currently done for SCDF and SPF national servicemen.

Chan said in his written response that the SAF does not provide additional meal allowances for NSFs beyond the monthly NS allowance.

The minister also highlighted the differing operational contexts between the SAF and the Home Team.

Most Home Team personnel are stationed at locations where commercial meal options are accessible and fresh rations from cookhouses are not available. In those case, a meal allowance is provided to them instead. 

Home Team personnel based in training institutes with access to cookhouses do not receive an additional meal allowance.

"The vast majority of NSFs in the SAF are based in camps or locations that tend to be sited in less accessible areas. For operational reasons, we provide these NSFs with lodging and meals from cookhouses to better accommodate their training and duties," he added.

On the other hand, there is a small group of NSFs who perform operational roles at locations without SAF cookhouses, and they may request to receive fresh rations while on duty and arrangements will be made, he added. 

"For the minority of SAF NSFs that stay out of camp, the monthly NS allowance already provides for their basic personal upkeep, including the cost of meals," Chan added.

The base monthly allowance for NSFs was last revised in July 2025, when it was increased by between $35 and $75.

In total, it has been reviewed four times over the past decade. The ministry, said Chan, will ensure that it remains adequate, and continue to review it regularly.

"NSFs who require further assistance due to personal circumstances are supported through the Financial Assistance Scheme," Chan said, adding that any NSF facing difficulties is encouraged to speak with their commanders.

Credits to Original Source: No additional meal allowances for NSFs; those in need can approach commanders: Chan Chun Sing : r/singapore

TOC Article Link: https://theonlinecitizen.com/2026/05/06/tan-see-leng-rejects-wp-ideas-to-tackle-ai-driven-inequality-says-plans-risk-undermining-empowerment

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YglHTSIIp-o

Workers’ Party MP for Aljunied GRC Kenneth Tiong spoke in Parliament on Tuesday (5 May) on the Skills and Workforce Development Agency Bill, questioning whether Singapore’s skills system is effectively building real worker capabilities beyond credentials.

He highlighted the success of employer-anchored place-and-train programmes in improving wages, retention and outcomes, and noted that existing Skills Frameworks are useful but not sufficient on their own for hiring and capability development.

Tiong raised concerns about the individual credit-based SkillsFuture system, citing issues such as fraud cases, low take-up of key schemes, and weak links between training and employment outcomes, which he described as structural in nature.

He called for stronger employer accountability in training, where firms and sectoral bodies take greater responsibility for outcomes to better align skills development with labour market needs.

https://tocasia.link/ktiuiy Singapore remained ranked 123rd out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), though its overall score declined to 44.57.

The report highlighted weaker performance in legal and social indicators, despite slight gains in economic and political scores.

RSF also noted the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) in the region and described a global deterioration in press freedom, with 2026 marking the lowest average score in the index’s history.

Read the full article for more details (link in comments section)